back again as fast as he could, but when Appledore
was nearly reached the dog swamped the boat, made his way to shore, and
was lost in the shadows of Northam Burrows. 'And the boatman's nerve was
so much shaken that soon afterwards he gave up the ferry.

A monument to William de Tracy was wrongly supposed to lie in the church
of Morthoe, or Morte, as it is more commonly called, on the north of the
bay. The memorial is of another William de Tracy, rector here till his
death in 1322. It is an elaborately sculptured altar-tomb, and bears the
incised effigy of a priest; on the sides are figures of St Catherine and
St Mary Magdalene, to whom jointly the rector founded a chapel in his
church. The church is mainly Perpendicular, but it has an Early English
chancel.

The northern curve of the bay ends in Morte Point, and here is a
cromlech in ruins, for the massive slab of rock which formed the
cover-stone has fallen from the upright stones on which it used to lie.

Beyond the point, at the end of the reef, is a huge rock called the
Morte Stone, very dangerous on that exposed coast. The Normans are
supposed to have given its sinister name, and many since their time have
found it a true rock of death. No fewer than five vessels have been lost
there in one winter. Rather more than a mile to the north, Bull Point,
jutting out into the sea, abruptly ends the coast-line on the north; the
cliffs fall back slightly, and stretch away eastward, above 'black
fields of shark's-tooth tide-rocks, champing and churning the great
green rollers into snow.'

Returning to the Taw, inland, upon the eastern side of the Burrows, one
passes Braunton, two or three miles short of the estuary. The most
interesting point about this village is its association with its
name-saint, St Brannock--for the ancient name was Brannockstown. Old
writers rather wildly assert that the saint was the son of a 'King of
Calabria,' but Mr Baring-Gould, in a rapid sketch, says that he was the
Irish confessor of a King of South Wales, who, not finding happiness in
the life he was leading, migrated to North Devon. The legends that
sprang up about his name are steeped in a golden haze. When St Brannock
arrived, the whole place was 'overspread with brakes and woods. Out of
which desert, now named the Borroughs (to tell you some of the marvels
of this man), he took harts, which meekly obeyed the yoke,' and made
them 'plow to draw timber thence to build a church, which may